Various forms of set-top boxes and related devices are known in the art. Recently, consumers have expressed significant interest in “place shifting” devices that allow viewing of television or other media content at locations other than their primary television set. Place shifting devices typically packetize media content that can be transmitted over a local or wide area network to a portable computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, remote television or other remote device capable of playing back the packetized media stream for the viewer. Placeshifting therefore allows consumers to view their media content from remote locations such as other rooms, hotels, offices, and/or any other locations where portable media player devices can gain access to a wireless or other communications network.
Typically, placeshifted media streams are encoded “on the fly” to accommodate then-current network bandwidth, processing resources, and the like. Generally speaking, the placeshifted stream is encoded at the best possible quality that can be transmitted over the network and presented to the viewer without stalling during playback. Changing network conditions and other factors, however, can make maximal quality streaming without stalling a substantial challenge in some settings.
It is therefore desirable to create systems and methods for efficiently and effectively providing placeshifted video content to a remote viewer. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.